Regardless of the situation, we will still action upon "dead game" comments. As this is a sensitive issue for SC2 fans, please do not come into this thread and talk about SC2 players switching over to BW. This thread is also not about bashing Blizzard, David Kim, or the WCS system.
On October 18 2016 11:36 mGGrinehart wrote: KT players were just moving houses!
Anyway, foreigner sc2 is actually pretty stable now, with there even being some new and upcoming players. I really do expect sc2 to pivot even further towards the foreign scene and especially China. Big market there.
Yeah it is sad, but it won't mean the end of the world.
China was the biggest viewing market for Proleague, if that could not sustain them, I'm not very optimistic on the future unless Blizzard intervenes directly.
Chinese Proleague viewership wasn't relevant. The sponsors to Proleague were only interested in domestic viewership (since their products are Korea specific except for Samsung).
On October 18 2016 11:33 Ve5pa wrote: I don't even play SC2 I play LoL, but I watch Sc2 religiously as an eSport it had so much going for it. RTS seems to be dying so sad as it was the truest of all genres. How much of this is to do with Blizzard??
Well, it has everything to do with blizzard, the question is was it preventable and can you blame them, no one really knows. There is some reasonable justification that you can
On October 18 2016 11:36 mGGrinehart wrote: KT players were just moving houses!
Anyway, foreigner sc2 is actually pretty stable now, with there even being some new and upcoming players. I really do expect sc2 to pivot even further towards the foreign scene and especially China. Big market there.
Yeah it is sad, but it won't mean the end of the world.
China was the biggest viewing market for Proleague, if that could not sustain them, I'm not very optimistic on the future unless Blizzard intervenes directly.
Chinese viewer numbers have never mattered for leagues outside of china. I assume that is true for overwatch/heroes of the storm/hearthstone/whatever as well.
There's always been like huge viewership in china for BW, WC3, dota/dota 2, i assume LOL, absolutely insane numbers would just casually drop in to a tournament (like chinese resteams would have 150,000+) but that translate to absolutely nothing.
I dont know SC2 viewership in China but I assume it was healthy for some period of time
I'm kinda here cuz I started keeping stats for proleague and then the dude at TL who did it went mia and I lent a hand and that's how TL roped me in. And my heart stayed fooooooreveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer.
I will always have fond memories of you, Mr League.
Very sad but not unexpected, it seems Korean fans just do not care about Starcraft2
Before everyone jumps on the Blizzard/WCS hate train remember proleague is almost 100% funded by Korean companies, with Korean fans moving away from sc2 to overwatch and LoL etc there is just no reason for Korean companies, which only care about the Korean viewers, to continue funding an expensive sc2 tournament. The WCS changes have pretty much nothing to do with the health of Teams like SKT or KT, they literally could care less about a Dreamhack tournament in Europe.
Also iirc Blizzard has actually provided more total prize pool inside Korea(where Korean sponsers actually care) in 2016 compared to 2015.
Honestly, end of Proleague doesn't bother me much. I think I've always been much more into the stories of individual players than teams. Still, though, all of my favorite teams other than Liquid have always been Korean. With this, we see behemoths not only of SC1/SC2 but eSports in general deciding the time has come, and that really does make me sad.
I hope everything works out for the players still committed and successful enough to keep playing. And while I do see the negatives in this situation, I think the end of Kespa is healthy for the scene overall. Proleague and Kespa going away doesn't mean shit to the foreign scene, and could in fact end up being a good thing. Don't cry, kids.
RIP to my favorite SC2 team ever. SKT dies the best KT.
EPT
